"That's all right--we've got something, haven't we, Jack?" Jack waved a parcel. "But whatever did you let such an extraordinary-looking creature into the house for? and whatever did she mean by screaming out that she's a ghost's wife? Is she very mad?"

"I think she is--and I didn't let her in."

Then, while they were preparing tea, the tale was told, or at least a part of it. But even that part was enough to make Jack Martyn grave. As the telling proceeded, he grew graver and graver, until, at the end, he wore a face of portentous gloom. When they seated themselves to the meal he made precisely the remark which they had expected him to make. He rested his hands on his knees, and he solemnly shook his head.

"This comes of your being alone in the house!"

Ella laughed.

"There! now you've started him on his own particular crotchet; he'll never let you hear the last of this."

Jack went on.

"I've said before, and I say again, and I shall keep on saying, that you two girls ought not to live alone by yourselves in a house in this out-of-the-way corner of the world."

"Out-of-the-way corner of the world!--on Wandsworth Common!"

"For all practical intents and purposes you might as well be in the middle of the Desert of Sahara; you might shriek and shriek and I doubt if any one would hear you. This agreeable visitor of Madge's might have cut her throat from ear to ear, or chopped her into mincemeat, and she would have been as incapable of summoning assistance as if she had been at the top of Mont Blanc."

"That's it. Jack--pile it on!"

"I don't think it's fair of you to talk like that, Ella; I'm not piling it on; I'm just speaking the plain and simple truth. Honestly, Madge, when you've been alone in the house all day long, haven't you felt that you were at the mercy of the first evil-disposed person who chose to come along; or, if you haven't felt it before, don't you think you'll feel it now?"

"No--to both your questions."

"Supposing this woman comes back again to-morrow?"

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